grafter meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

grafter

noun

Etymology From graft + -er.

One who inserts scions on other stocks, or propagates fruit by engrafting.

An instrument by which grafting is facilitated.

The original tree from which a scion has been taken for grafting upon another tree.

Slang Someone who works in market stalls.

UK, Colloquial a hard worker who puts in long hours

noun

Etymology From graft + -er.

A corrupt person, one who receives graft.

If the people are corrupt; if everybody is a grafter, as our pessimistic friends would have us believe, Roosevelt would be unpopular. His popularity is proof that the people, as a whole, are honest.1911, The Twentieth Century Magazine, volume 4, page 335:
It is rather confused rhetoric to call a grafter a thief. His crime is not that he filches money from the safe but that he betrays a trust.1980, David Mark Chalmers, The Muchrake Years, Krieger Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 152:

1 more example

2007, Rebecca Menes, "Limiting the Reach of the Grabbing Hand: Graft and growth in American Cities, 1880 to 1930", in Edward L. Glaeser, Claudia Goldin (eds.), Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report, The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 64. Rapid city growth rewarded the circumspect grafter with opportunities for what one famous Tammany Hall politician termed “honest graft” […].